Title: 13
Author: JBG
Last saved by: PJ D
Company: GDC

David’s Heir		13-03-31-b ES13-02 /

David’s Heir: The Israelites Order Samuel to Appoint Them a King; Samuel Reports Back from the Lord What They Should Expect from a Human Ruler, 1 Sam 8:10–22a;Saul Becomes the Lord’s Anointed; Even Though Pursued by Saul David Refuses to Strike the Lord’s Anointed, 1 Sam 24:6; the Lord Places Saul under Judgment, 28:6; Saul Turns to Demonism but God Interrupts by Sending Samuel from Paradise, vv. 16–19; Saul Commits Suicide on Mount Gilboa, 31:4
1 Samuel 8:5 -	and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways.  Now appoint [ Qal imperative of <Wc (sum) ] a king for us to judge us like all the nations.”  (nasb)
Samuel presented the request to the Father Who agreed to provide the people with a ruler.  Before doing so He made clear to the people what they were getting into along with this advisory delivered by the prophet Samuel:
1 Samuel 8:10 -	So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king.
v. 11 -	He said, “This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots.
v. 12 -	“He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
1 Samuel 8:13 -	“He will take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers.
v. 14 -	“He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants.
v. 15 -	“He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants.
v. 16 -	“He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best men and your donkeys and use them for his work.
v. 17 -	“He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants.
v. 18 -	“Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
v. 19 -	Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samson, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us,
v. 20 -	that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”
v. 21 -	Now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord’s hearing.
v. 22a -	The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and appoint them a king.”
The man Samuel was instructed by the Lord to select as king over Israel was Saul.  Samuel anointed Saul in 1 Samuel 10:1 and his public investiture is described in 1 Samuel 10:17–24.  Upon his presentation, “all the peoples shouted and said, “Long live the king!” (v. 24)
The king, Saul of Gibeah, lived long enough to demonstrate he was not cut out for the job.  He would be characterized today as bipolar since he vacillated between devotion to his country and depression that resulted from jealousy and hatred toward David.
Saul hated David because he won the affections of the women of Israel due to his military prowess.  Secondly, because Samuel anointed David as Saul’s successor, his son Jonathan would not succeed him as king.
From these mental attitudes, Saul went in to murder lust, hell–bent to destroy David.  Note that David refused to kill Saul when he had the chance, stating in:
1 Samuel 24:6 -	“Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.”
Saul had not displayed any such high regard to “the Lord’s anointed” where David was concerned.  The Lord’s guidance was removed upon the occasion of Saul’s encounter with King Achish and the Philistine army.  Saul’s appeal to the Lord is found in:
1 Samuel 28:6 -	When Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by prophets.

Along with the Thummim, it was placed into the breastplate of the high priest and was the medium through which the high priest determined the divine will in national crises, future events, and the determination of guilt or innocence.  No solid data are provided to determine exactly what these two articles were.  Some speculate that the Urim means light while Thummim means darkness.  Josephus states that the stones shone whenever the shekhinah was present at a sacrifice or when the army proceeded to battle (see Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, [(Bk III, chap, viii, par. 9]).

When no answer was forthcoming, Saul turned to demonism for assistance:
1 Samuel 28:7 -	Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek for me a woman who is a medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.”  And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a woman who is a medium at En-dor.”
Saul dressed in as disguise and went to En-dor to have a séance with the witch whom he asked to call up Samuel from Paradise.
The witch didn’t have the power to do this, but God does, so she is shocked when Samuel arrives on the scene.  This is not a resuscitation but actually Samuel being brought up from Paradise in an interim body to consult with Saul.
Samuel is disturbed that he is being asked to leave the utopian conditions of Paradise and reenter the fallen environment of the devil’s world.  However, he is responding to the Lord’s instruction to consult with Saul.
Samuel learns that Saul had appealed to the Lord for guidance regarding a threat from the Philistine army, but the Lord has ignored him.  The prophet then announces what amounts to the imposition of the sin unto death upon the king:

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